Willie Frazer

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Willie Frazer is the founder and leader of the Northern Irish pressure group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR). He is also one of the leaders of the Love Ulster campaign.

William Frazer grew up in the village of Whitecross, County Armagh, in Northern Ireland. The area is mostly Catholic and young William attended the local Catholic school. His father, James, was a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment and was shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army on the 30th August 1975. In the next ten years four members of Frazer's family were killed by the IRA. Two of them were civilians.

FAIR claims to represent the victims of IRA violence in South Armagh. But it has been criticised for not doing the same for victims of loyalist paramilitary organisations. Indeed, in the past, Frazer had said of loyalist paramilitary prisoners that "They should never have been locked up in the first place", and that he had "a lot of time for Billy Wright."^[1] Frazer, a member of the Orange Order and of the Apprentice Boys, has defended security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. "He applied for a weapon for his personal protection and was turned down in 2003 because, according to police, of "reliable intelligence" that he "associated with loyalist terrorist organisations". He denied it and sought a judicial review - it was refused in 2004." ^[2] In January 2007 Frazer dismissed Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's report into security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. ^[3]

Frazer is also involved in local elections in South Armagh, though he has never been elected. He ran as an Ulster Independence Movement candidate in the 1996 Forum Elections, the 1998 Assembly elections and as an independent in the 2003 Assembly elections as well as a council by-election. His best poll was of 1,427, 26%, in the Fews DEA by-election in August 2006.

Frazer came to wider attention in October 2005 when he got into a public argument with Catholic Redemptorist Priest Father Alec Reid. Frazer made remarks that Catholics had butchered protestants during the troubles. Father Reid likened Unionist treatment of catholics to the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. Reid later apologised for the remark, saying he had lost his temper. Frazer reported Reid to the police for incitement of hatred. ^[4].

Frazer was an organiser of the Love Ulster parade in Dublin that had to be cancelled due to rioting. In January 2007, Frazer protested outside the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in Dublin that voted to join policing structures in the North of Ireland. He "expressed outrage at the idea that the "law-abiding population" would negotiate with terrorists to get them to support democracy, law and order." ^[5]